What are you eating this Christmas?

[SRD]

Christmas is a time when it makes sense to go with what one knows, too often experiments go awry as timings are difficult to keep to. But I still like to have a crack at something a little different for one course.
As we spend most of the daylight hours out on Christmas Eve, delivering cards, singing carols etc. we'll have a bacvon & Mushroom sandwich for breakfast. For our starter I'm having a crack at Scotch eggs, made with quails eggs which I soft boil so that when one bites into the hot Scotch egg the yolk is still runny. We're following that with smoked goose breast, red cabbage and jacket potatoes and mince pies to follow. I've got a nice bottle of Bordeaux to go with the goose..
Christmas day starts with smoked salmon & champagne, orange juice & coffee for breakfast then prawn cocktails as a starter. Main course this year is a roast loin of pork with apple & onion rings fried in butter, roast potatoes, brussels & forcemeat stuffing balls. Christmas pud & cream. There's a full bodied, dryish German white with the Pork (although some of the English wines, though pricey, would be good alternative) and an Australian Muscat with the pudding. Christmas Cake, cheese (a local goats cheese similar to Wensleydale) and a glass of Marsala for late tea and Stilton with Apple, Walnuts & Port for supper.
Boxing Day is traditional for us, we'll cook a ham, this year it's a small loin as there's only the two of us, served with white onion sauce and boiled root vegetables.
We probably won't need to eat again 'til New Year when we'll have pheasant with all the trimmings.

[Northern Lass]

If I bring a Bottle can I join you

[Rob]

Can i come as well? I've always wanted to spend Christmas with the "Toffs"!!

[Rob]

I can make sure she doesn't drink too much as she sometimes,or so i've been informed,does!!

[Northern Lass]

Sounds fantastic SRD it really does.

I am having Roast Lamb............and I don't want to cook that!
As me and Wolvie for the first time are on our own............kids elsewhere.........
Wiltshire is only round the corner too!

[Jimmy]

You can join me NL for egg beans and chips washed down with a can of carling.

[dudleytaylor]

What time is your restaurant open Jimmy ? . Sounds lovely xxxx But no beans for me LOL

[Rob]

Washed doen Jimmy? Is this Peterd in disguise canny lad? Howay the Toon.

[Jimmy]

thats typing in the dark, or the carlberg I had last night.

[Rob]

Haven't you paid the electric bill again?

[gardener]

I might as well be running a restaurant!

Today was easy because we (me and him) went out with friends for the traditional rotten skate, served with boiled potatoes, swede, and a choice of melted lambs fat or melted lambs fat which has been allowed to "mature" a bit. Thank goodness it is only traditional once a year.

Tomorrow we are having various nibbly bits followed by smoked pork with caramelized potatoes, red cabbage and other veg; only this year daughter #1 asked to have smoked lamb instead, with white sauce and plain potatoes; #2 child doesn't like any potatoes much so I had said I would make him dauphinoise ones; and #3 child no longer eats meat so she is having salmon. Afterwards it is a French chocolate cake, fruit and ice cream.

Usually I am the only person up and about before mid-day on the 25th, and no-one is very hungry either but I have a bottle of fizz and some orange juice, not sure what I will eat with it though. We normally have turkey in the evening but I saw a recipe for boning a chicken and stuffing it with a boned pheasant and a duck breast. I have always fancied trying to do that and Christmas seems perfect for experimenting I will cheat a bit though and stuff it with two pheasant breasts and two duck breasts so there is only the chicken to hack to bits. #3 child can make her own nut roast! And then trifle for afters.

Boxing Day is afternoon coffee at the in laws I expect, then we are going to see The Hobbit and I figure beans on toast after that!

[SRD]

My mother always did a five bird roast as she was feeding so many and liked to have plenty of cold meats for Boxing Day and their usual post Christmas party and it's so easy to carve. I don't know how good the the butchers are in Iceland but she always got them to bone out the birds for her.
She used a different flavoured layer of stuffing between each of the meat layers.
MrsSRD & I tried to do it at home once and could only find green button thread to sew the beast up after the layering process, it looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie with dark green criss cross stitching all up and over the breast.

Round here you can buy 3, 4 and 5 bird roasts them ready prepared.

We'd love for you all to join us but there's no room to stay and the local hostelries, B&Bs etc. are all booked up. There might be room in a stable somewhere, is anyone pregnant?

[Northern Lass]

My mother always did a five bird roast as she was feeding so many and liked to have plenty of cold meats for Boxing Day and their usual post Christmas party and it's so easy to carve. I don't know how good the the butchers are in Iceland but she always got them to bone out the birds for her.
She used a different flavoured layer of stuffing between each of the meat layers.
MrsSRD & I tried to do it at home once and could only find green button thread to sew the beast up after the layering process, it looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie with dark green criss cross stitching all up and over the breast.

Round here you can buy 3, 4 and 5 bird roasts them ready prepared.

We'd love for you all to join us but there's no room to stay and the local hostelries, B&Bs etc. are all booked up. There might be room in a stable somewhere, is anyone pregnant?

If it means getting an invite to your place and all that fab food SRD
I'll get pregnant!!
Just a min getting me coat.................

[dudleytaylor]

Be a miracle if I was Pregnant !!!

[snoopysue]

There's only the two of us this year - everyone else is off with respective in laws! Not that we mind - it's quite nice just being the two of us.
We'll start with a salmon mousse, followed by non traditional beef tournado, and finished off with Ris a la mande - which is traditional Danish pud for Christmas - Cold rice pudding with chopped almonds and whipped cream folded in with hot cherry sauce.
Christmas here, as for Gardener in Iceland is a Christmas Eve thing, so Santa has already been and deposited the presents under the tree! Not that we'll go short on tradional British Christmas, I've turkey in, cranberry sauce, mince pies and Christmas puds are on hand for the rest of the Christmas season. And I've made Danish frikadellers (pork meat balls) with sage and onion - they went Down a treat last year!
On saturday we're off to my in laws for a traditional Danish Christmas lunch - I say lunch, it goes on for most of the afternoon, and probably on into the evening! We'll start with fish, smoked salmon, or pickled herring on rye bread. There'll probably also be a Danish liver paté with bacon and mushrooms again with rye bread, sausage, cabbage in cream, maybe glazed ham. In short, lots of smaller dishes and scnaps (not for me though!). It's a case of pacing yourself, so that you don't get stuffed too soon!!